Three Things for April 23, 2021
Welcome to the Three Things newsletter, where I’ll highlight a few items for public radio leaders to be paying attention to in the midst of everything happening at their organization and in their communities.
THING ONE: What Is This Thing?
We live in a chaotic world where taking the time to think and look around the corner is becoming more and more difficult for everyone - particularly for a public radio leader who is faced with daily, perhaps hourly, challenges. So, please consider this weekly newsletter as an opportunity to quickly catch up on a couple of things that are going on in public media or the larger ecosystem that we operate in at our stations. I plan to deliver this to email boxes every Friday, and I hope you’ll read, subscribe and share. Thanks.
THING TWO: Radio On The Recovery From the Pandemic
Inside Radio is reporting the good news that radio’s weekly reach in March 2021 increased by 3% over February 2021 and has almost returned to where we were at the onset of the pandemic a year ago. The charts below from the Inside Radio piece show the trendline over the past 13 months.
The return of Cume is good news, as is the uptick in overall AQH for radio in March from 7.0M AQH in February 2021 to 7.5M in March for the 45 markets measured with the PPM.
Public Radio news stations are still performing very well, although a sampling shows that there might be some loss in audience coming in the post-Trump news cycle. Here’s a sample of a few stations that lost market share from January to March of 2021 :
And here’s a couple of winners who actually increased share in the same period:
This month should be interesting to watch to see if the trial of Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis will impact the April numbers.
THING THREE: The Apple Podcast Subscription Announcement
You probably didn’t miss this news, so I’ll offer a couple of links worth reading with the hopes that station leaders will give this a lot of thought because I think it’s a pretty big deal.
First, here’s the official announcement from Apple, complete with a quote from NPR CEO John Lansing (who’s actually still on leave due to health issues):
“Apple has been a valued partner to our podcasting work since it all started back in 2005, and we support their plan to enable a new revenue source for content creators on their platform. Apple Podcasts Subscriptions will provide another opportunity for listeners to support their favorite podcasters at NPR and our Member stations in our mission to create a more informed public.”
Current’s Tyler Falk has a good piece in Current about the announcement, noting that NPR will also be partnering with Spotify when it rolls out its version of the model.
A really good take on the announcement came from NiemanLab's Joshua Benton, who details some of the financials in the announcement - Apple gets 30% of the subscription in the first year and 15% in years after - and provides insight into the impact on public radio. The piece also discusses the concept of creating channels for producers. For example, PRX announced four new channels beginning next month at the cost of $4.99 per month per channel in a press release.
Take a look at the standard agreement between Apple and podcasters, and you’ll find that, since the subscription content goes through Apple, podcasters (like NPR, PRX, and stations) won’t receive specific data about their paying listeners, like their email, names, or contact information.
Apple essentially owns the relationship.
This is standard with Apple, so it’s not surprising.
My thoughts on this are that the whole point in providing a subscription service is that by acquiring subscriber information, stations could use the data as a pipeline for greater membership and philanthropic giving. If that information resides with Apple, it's a huge loss for public radio stations.
The beauty of what PBS has been able to do with Passport is that the data is retained by stations, not by a third party.
Is the revenue to be gained by listeners subscribing through Apple enough to satisfy stations -- especially when Apple is taking 30% off the top in the first year and 15% in the years that follow? Let’s hope.
Next week (Wednesday, April 28 at 2:00 PM ET), NPR hosts a webinar for stations to discuss the initiative in great detail.
This may be the best public radio can do, given Apple and Spotify's stranglehold with their distribution platforms. Still, it’s also a good time for the stations and networks to continue to work toward a platform that we can own and retain the data that will be so valuable to us in the future.
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading.